CURRENT NOTES'.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 289, 6 December 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

CURRENT NOTES'.

The Y.M.C.A., which last week celebrated the seventy-fifth year of its existence in Auckland, has, like the city, made remarkable strides in that time, and is now one of our most important institutions. A missionary in connection with the China Inland 'Mission writes of the scenes of desolation he saw a short tune a°-o in travelling through China. There were districts where 110 crops were planted, and where the people were tearin <r down their houses to sell in tlie cities as firewood, whilst brigands were to be met with everywhere The need for the prevention of propagation bv people who are mentally and physically unfit was stressed at the recent Church Congress in England in connection with the discussion on modern problems, as well as the need for the awakening of the public conscience regarding the responsibilities of parenthood. One of the speakers, whilst thoroughly agreeing, remarked that it would be a ghastly ' irony to breed healthy, able and intelligent men, and then seiid them out once in every oO years to butcher one another on battlefields. Tile "Spectator" is publishing a series of articles on religious orthodoxy. Criticisms are expressed and answered each week alternately. The opening article is entitled "Irreligion," and is headed with the following quotation from the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man . "The soul is born first in those moments I told you of." It has a slow an.d. dark

birth more mysterious than the birth 01 I the body. When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets." Mr. Harry Dawson, having closed a mission in Grey Lynn, has now commenced a mission in Mount Albert, in each case under the auspices of the churches. The Rev. R. H. Hobday, editor of the "Diocesan Gazette," commenting on the meetings in Grey Lynn, expresses the conviction that they drew Christian people together in closer fellowship and quickened their devotion to the cause of religion. The Mount Albert mission was held this week in the Baptist Church. Next week it will be held m the Presbyterian Church, and will close a few days before Christmas, with meetings in the Methodist Church. The address of the Moderator of the N.S.W. General Assembly of last May, the Rev. C. A. White, 8.A., has been published by Messrs. Angus and Robertson, Sydney. It is entitled "The Church and the Labour Movement," and is a wise, lucidly put and convincing pronouncement. The following extract will give some idea of the matter and style' of an attractively got-up booklet. "One of the most urgent needs in the present situation is the spirit of good will. If wo approach life's affairs from the viewpoint of our own interest without regard to others, it always makes the way difficult, if not impossible. If we regard those who belong to another class as o ir enemies, with whom we have no common interest, and whom it is our job to fight without quarter, the way leads to a dead end. Brotherhood is a beautiful tiling, but some current ideals which use the name deny the fact. Class consciousness is a negation of brotherhood." There is in our lives a holy of holies, the altar room, where we may lay ourselves in absolute and unreserved surrender upon the altar of sacrifice for Jesus Christ. Brethren, is it not true that most of us do- not know what self-denial is? We have never begun to breathe into our souls the spirit of fellowship with the sufferings of Jesus Christ.—John Balcom Shaw.